Deconstructing Lenses: My Trauma Lens, Childhood Abuse Healing

When trying to decide which lens to walk through first, I decided to structure this series in the way I would approach myself had Silver Dove Hope Circle been in existence when I needed it. This is not the lens I would prefer to start with, but based on my program there is no other choice. These are not always the easiest things to discuss now that I can feel the words I write. But I feel in order to help the most, I need to expose this kind of thing. I have my voice now and I kinda like it!

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I want to show you what it looks like living under 14 lenses of perception control. In order to do this, I will be real with you, raw. I share my lenses not for attention <------- that's a distortions, see, I am a work in progress! More on this later. I share my lenses because I hope to resonate with you. I hope one of my experiences may sound familiar to people who need to be heard.. I want you to realize that I understand THIS problem intimately. And if I understand this problem and have succeeded in taming it... it is my hope that you will see it is possible to get to the other side--- it is possible to see yourself through the lens of reality.

This lens in particular, I must ask you to stop reading if you are triggered easy. If childhood trauma is triggering, if that kind of darkness requires you to look away, now is the time to do so.

This is not an in depth trauma story. I will not be disclosing all of the details of my life, but I will list it out to show you that I have had to overcome in order to survive. Someday, I will write a book and that is where you will find the details. Just understand I share this not for pity, but to provide hope to others who need it. That is my only motive. This stuff is very past tense for me. For today and the purposes of this discussion, here is my trauma list:

Age 3-13 molested regularly

Age 9 raped for the first time

Age 12 sex trafficked for 1 night

13- spoke my truth and was imprisoned for it in a porch in Florida for the summer

14-17- Abandoned by mother, and lived in foster care/group homes/detention center for 6 months before returning to a cold caregiver who was not capable of being supportive or loving due to her own unresolved issues.

The first time I listed this, it hit me hard. I took away all of the pretty words that I had used to cover the truth and it was hard to write, without all that fluff.

As I write it now, it is a different experience. I realize slowly, just how dark my life was. Perhaps that sounds strange, but if you never knew that this was a wrong type of lifestyle... well... how would you know? Yes, you can know that it is WRONG... but not always HOW wrong. Writing this list today, I begin to see how much that list really is---especially for a child. Those new emotions I feel tho... okay, lets do this!

Those experiences set me up for a lifetime of self esteem issues that I kept inside deeply, like may of you do. I learned to hate myself, because for reasons unknown to me, I could not hate them. I cannot hate anyone. Perhaps that is good who knows. I could not be angry at them either. I never once cried for myself (until Mayo, )because I could not FEEL myself until then.

It was about a year before my Mayo experience that I had started thawing, but it wasn't until Mayo that I really was dethawed. I am 42. And I feel like now is the first time I am feeling life. It is an odd and humbling experience.

Instead, of being angry at those who wronged me- I took all the expected emotions and turned it inward. And that was the first part of my mental prison. I was ashamed to be alive but didn't know why. I felt guilty to be alive but didn't know why. While I was suicidal as a teen and young adult, as a young 20 and older I was always happy. But still-- I felt shamed and guilt inside over just being alive, I was really amazing at hiding it though. So on the outside, like so many of you-- I smiled and was happy and no one had a clue that inside I hated myself, felt inadequate, felt unlovable, felt empty, felt ashamed, felt--- alone. I was a shell. And there was no end in sight. This was to be life... happy, but knowing that something is not right.

I was never a victim of my trauma. I had some kind of instinct and I knew that thinking like that would stop me or destroy me. So I decided early on I would not become a statistic. I did not get into drugs or alcohol so much, I was not promiscuous, I was a a good student and I got good grades. I left the home at 17 and graduated high school while working though my senior year. You never would have guessed the cage I was building in my head-- just like people don't know yours.

And at some point I went to college, had a family and was happy with my life-- but not happy with myself. Interesting contradiction I suppose, but I truly loved my life, just not who I was. I was not enough no matter what, and that was the one consistency in my life. Its hard to explain to people who have not gone through this. Many would argue that this is not possible. But this is my truth. I did not feel empty inside-- I felt what I thought was normal. And I felt ALOT-- just not toward ME. I did not exist. What I could feel, I felt THROUGH other people. I became the best version I could be for them-- not myself.

So That was my largest lens-- I wore it from my earliest days till this year, from age 3 to 42. The program I have created here, it is how I was able to deconstruct that lens. I realized finally, that my trauma didn't define me, it is the response to that trauma that did. I learned that I was not all of the terrible things that I was made to feel-- I realized those feelings needed to be felt so I could feel-- so I could KNOW who I was.

This lens did not disintegrate; it takes a special kind of balance to continue to remind myself I do not have to be ashamed of who I am. But this is a dance I can do and it is a dance I want to help others learn. Healing is not linear, it is constantly in progress. But now, I am not drowning, I am swimming, and that is such an improvement.

If you are a survivor of childhood abuse, there is a special circle for this, because I understand uniquely how much this can destroy you-- if you let it. I also know how to prevent yourself from being destroyed, because I preserved myself the whole time. The part of me that was lost and numb was never dead. My light may have been small for a while, but it was always there. And now I seek to help others who are stuck in that dark spot. This is why you see so many reference to light in dark on my pages.

*** The distortion mentioned above-- its an old fear-- I was taught that speaking about such things is attention seeking. I defend myself because I feel like I have to and it is one of the hardest things to stop. But-- I know what it is, and why it is there, so I can totally manage... and so can you!